


Chromatic

by mugsandpugs



Category: IT (2017)
Genre: Colorbind Soulmates AU, F/M, Fluff, Gen, M/M, OT7, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-18 14:46:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13102389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mugsandpugs/pseuds/mugsandpugs
Summary: The first color that Eddie Kaspbrak ever saw was blue.





	Chromatic

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Loneredballoon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Loneredballoon/gifts).



> Christmas gift for loneredballoon. (Love you, Katy.)
> 
> Pretty much pure fluff because I'll never get over the bond these kids share.

The first color that Eddie Kaspbrak ever saw was blue.

All Derry children grew up in a gray world until they met their special someone, and then, as his mother had explained, _then_ all the colors at once would be available to them. “ _Someday you’ll meet a nice, proper girl, Eddie, and then you’ll see just what I mean_.” 

It didn’t happen like that. 

One moment he was riding his bicycle slowly along the more affluent neighborhoods for the simple pleasure of admiring each garden, and the world was as it should be: Gray all over, darkening to black in shadow and lightening to white wherever the sun hit. The grays were deepening as the sun began to set in the summer sky, lengthening the shadows and cooling the temperature. Eddie knew he’d be expected home soon and had almost turned back... When he noticed a moving truck in front of the largest house, its back-end yawning open to reveal itself still half-full of big cardboard boxes. 

Curiously, Eddie pressed closer, his fingers crossed, hardly daring hope- 

Yes! There was indeed a boy’s bicycle propped against the side of the house. Eddie grinned broadly, feeling the gaps where he’d recently lost baby-teeth in his smile. 

“Well, hello there,” said a cheerful woman’s voice, making Eddie jump and nearly topple from his bicycle. He spun to see a pretty lady in a wide-brimmed hat smiling at him. Her frame was slim but her belly was round- she was what his mother might have described as ‘expecting’, but everyone else just called ‘pregnant.’ “I’m Mrs. Denbrough.” 

“Hi,” Eddie said shyly, wondering if he should leave. He wasn’t really supposed to talk to strangers… but the _bike!_ A boy!! 

The lady’s smile softened in understanding. “I have a son about your age,” she explained. “His name is Bill. Would you like to meet him?” 

Numbly, Eddie nodded. He hadn’t any friends at school; he was too small, too fragile. They called him a sissy-boy and laughed at him or chased him away or vollied to make him cry when he tried to join in group activities. But maybe somebody new… 

He was disappointed when ‘Bill’ was summoned by a call from his mother. _This_ boy was tall for his age; handsome and cool. Surely the other kids would accept him right away. He looked like someone who might laugh at a sissy-boy like Eddie. 

“You were so nervous about moving to Derry,” Mrs. Denbrough told Bill. “But look! You already have a new friend. Isn’t that nice?” 

Bill made the face that all children made when their parents tried to assign friends to them. Eddie was regretting his decision to stay more and more. This wasn’t turning out at all like he’d hoped- 

“W-w-wuh…” Bill started to say, then clamped his mouth shut, flushing in aggravation. He tried again: “W-what’s your n-n-name?” 

“I’m-” Eddie opened his mouth to respond, and then froze, because he and Bill had locked eyes... 

And Bill’s eyes were a color that Eddie had never seen before, nor yet had a name for. 

Everything else remained gray and darkening still as the sun continued to set, but Bill’s eyes were so bright, so different in such striking contrast, that Eddie couldn’t have looked away if he’d tried. 

This wasn’t how it was supposed to happen at all! Bill wasn’t a ‘proper girl’- he was just a boy, too cool by half even with such a stutter, to be Eddie’s friend. And why only this one hue, when he’d been told time and again that the entire world would be blooming in colors?! 

“I’m Eddie,” Eddie finished, glumily certain that something must be wrong with him. 

“Well, Eddie,” said Bill’s mother. “You should probably run along home now; it’s getting late. But come on back tomorrow if you like! I’m sure Bill could use some help setting up his room.” 

“Y-y-yeah,” Bill agreed, forgetting the embarrassment over his stutter. He was looking at Eddie with those piercing eyes in intense curiosity now. 

With shocked numbness, Eddie remounted his bike and wheeled his way home. It was slow-going; everywhere he turned, more and more things revealed themselves to be different shades. The petals of a tiny flower; the wings of a passing butterfly; even the streamers on his bicycle fluttering gaily in the breeze. 

His mother mistook his withdrawn and ponderous state as early sign of an encroaching fever and sent him to bed with a cloth on his head but before he would go, he thought he’d learn at least one thing. 

“Mother, what color is that?” he asked, pointing to the gray sofa. 

“Red, sweetheart.” 

“And that?” The charcoal stem of the fake flowers in a vase on the mantle. 

“Those are green. Darling, why do you-” 

“And-” he struggled to keep his voice steady before pointing to the toy car he’d extricated from his toybox; so bright that it stood out from all the rest of his belongings. “What is this one?” 

“That’s blue, Eddie.” 

_Blue, blue, blue_. Bluebirds and blue skies and blueberries and Bill Denbrough’s true-blue eyes; it seemed as though a whole new world of experiences had opened up for Eddie, right when he’d least expected it. 

It was bizarre that the phenomena of soul-colors should happen to Eddie in this unprecedented manor. And yet, as he lay down in bed and pulled the (blue!) cloth over his face, he couldn’t help but feel a secret thrill, excited to return to the new boy and look into those eyes again, from which the very color seemed to originate. 

It was many long months before either child got to experience their second color. 

* * *

Richard W. Tozier was many things, but ‘refrained’ was not one of them. He was a walking fireball; an explosion of overwhelming sensation. He was just generally a lot- _too much_ \- and it surprised Eddie less than it probably should have when he brought with him a new eye-watering color to complete the onslaught of senses. 

“I’ll be damned,” Richie marvelled, looking back and forth from Bill to Eddie the first time they were able to speak alone- he’d been, understandably, more puzzled than they about the introduction of two colors to his previously gray life. “So you’re telling me this is... normal?” 

“N-n-nope,” Bill grinned. 

“We’re pretty freaky,” Eddie shrugged. He’d thought, not without great shame, they were a fluke, he and Bill. Perhaps it was something to do with the fact that they were both boys; _inverts_ , as his mother would have disgustedly called them. 

With the introduction of these new colors, a different theory started to take root. If Bill had brought with him the color of the sky and Richie, the sun… Was it really so much of a stretch to believe that somewhere out there was someone who might bring all the rest? 

Richie bapped Eddie in the face with a sunflower plucked from a garden wheelbarrow- bursting yellow petals surrounding a gray centre and stem- and grinned widely when the smaller boy made a face at the petals tickling his nose. Eddie glared up at Richie. "Hey, stop that. Just because we're-" 

But here he faltered at the word, his face darkening as a warm flush took over, and Richie's evil grin widened, causing doves to erupt somewhere in Eddie's belly. " _Soul-_ mates, Eds? You can say it." 

Eddie pouted and turned away, causing Richie to cackle, the sound bright as lemons. "Cute, cute, _cute_!" 

"C-c-cut it out, Richie," Bill protested, but he was smirking too, the traitor. "Yuh-you're embarrassing him." 

"Oh, poor _Bill;_ don't you worry," the skinny, buck-toothed boy flung an arm round Bill's neck, ruffling his hair. "You're cute, too." He adopted a southern belle's dreamy voice: "I do declare! What a lucky lady am _I_ to have two such fine gentlemen..." 

Eddie caught Bill's eye and shook his head, beyond exasperated. That they were both, apparently, soulbonded to this goofy nutjob was a turn he'd never expected his life to take, but he'd be lying if he said he wasn't secretly pleased with it, deep, _deep_ down. 

But he'd surely never admit it, not as long as he lived! 

* * *

Things happened so slowly with Stanley Uris that at first the three other boys didn't know it'd begun at all. 

Stanley was... Quiet. Steady. Hard to excite, but harder to anger. He had the calm serenity of a wise man in his eighties, but fit it all into a compact child's frame. 

He also had brown eyes. 

This realization dawned on Eddie one day as they sat looking at birds together; Stan's mouth set into a flat line and the heels of his sneakers pressed solidly to the dirt under the bench. 

"That's a chickadee," Stan said, solemn face tilted up to see the little beeping budgie at the top of a fir, the tree's branching fingers pointing into a blue sky and a golden sun that Eddie would never tire of gazing at. "The one with the brown feathers. See?" 

"... Brown?" 

Stan seemed to realize what he'd said a moment too late, and he shot a startled look Eddie’s way. Realization hit as his warmly hued eyes swept his companion from head to toe. Then, like with all things, Stan put a bookmark on the thought, highlighted it as noteworthy, and accepted it for what it was. 

"Yes, Eddie. Brown." 

Stan, who was no romantic, merely smiled a little as Bill grinned his fool head off and Richie whooped and hollered and hugged him round the neck. And yet, when he pulled back and cupped the excitable boy's face in his hand, his smile widened a decibel as he observed: "I can see your freckles now." 

It was, as Bill later observed, the first time in history that anyone had ever rendered a blushing Trashmouth speechless. 

* * *

In hindsight, they all fell a little in love with her when she reared back and punched Henry Bowers in the nose, even before they saw the streaks of color running down her fist. 

He'd been acting like his usual charming self, knocking smaller kids over on the playground equipment and snickering as they cried. 

The four boys, sat on the curb with their popsicles, were ashamed to confess they didn't have the courage to take the bully on, not even combined as they were. 

Beverly Marsh had no such compunctions. 

"Hey, jackass!" she snarled, abandoning her game of hopscotch and stomping across the soccer field to him. Before the bully could even open his mouth to respond, she had him on his knees, clutching his face and cursing up a storm. 

Bill gasped aloud. When Eddie turned to look, he swore he saw small hearts rising in the air around the boy like he was some cartoon character. Not that Eddie could blame Bill: they were all feeling much the same way. 

"You _broke_ by _dose_!" 

"Uh-oh," Richie muttered, today trying on the voice of an Australian wildlife explorer. "Looks like our girl's gotten 'erself in a heap o' trouble..." 

_Our girl._

Eddie wasn't very big, but sometimes it felt like he had the heart of a lion instead of a fearful, tiny, asthmatic boy trapped in his chest, filling him so fully that there was room only for fire. This was one of those times. 

"Bevvie!" he shouted, dropping his popsicle as he hopped to his feet and waved his arms frantically. "Over here!" 

Beverly spun to face them, long hair whipping in a rope, red- _red!_ as fury behind her. She only just managed to dodge Henry's grasping hands as she sprinted for the group. 

They met her halfway. Everyone, even Stan, was worked into a frenzy of laughing, nervous glee. They stood together, united as soldiers in a way that any outsider could sense, even if they'd never truly understand, and glared the advancing Bowers down. 

Henry scowled when he realized he was outnumbered. "You're all a bunch of _losers,_ " he sneered, voice still thick from nosebleed, and kicked sand at them before storming away. Only then did Beverly return her stare to the four boys clustered around like knights to a queen. 

Her eyes were sparking, laughing blue crystals in her freckle-browned face; the goldenrod dress she wore sweeping just above her scabbed knees, and when she threw that red plait of hair back over her shoulder, it felt as though another puzzle piece had slid into place. 

"You're kidding me," she said in blunt disbelief. "I have to put up with _all_ of you?" 

"Well," the ever-practical Stan pointed out logically. "You don't _have_ to." 

"Oh, no," she shook her head firmly, ten years old and already iron-firm in resolve. "No, I'm gonna." 

"Good," Richie grinned. " _Someone's_ gotta." 

* * *

Sweet Ben was the best Valentine that they had ever, _would_ ever receive in their lives.

It was the color of his soft cheeks that caught the Losers' attention. Ben was _pink._ Softer than Beverly's fire. And the card onto which he wrote his poetry, lavender. 

"Is that for Beverley?" Eddie asked, sitting to the right of the new kid and pointing to the lace-decorated Valentine that he carefully drew onto. 

The chubby boy jumped and slammed a hand over the penned letters. He swiveled to face Eddie, an embarrassed glare on his darkening face- and then stiffened. 

"You," he said, a hint of wonder in his voice. "Your _eyes..._ " 

Eddie grinned, beckoning his friends closer. "Yeah? What about my eyes, new kid?" Ben's own eyes were gray like a winter sea; they were lovely, lonely eyes. 

Shyness and awe were warring on Ben’s face, but the former won out when Beverly, her jackal's grin rivaling only Richie's, plonked herself onto his desktop to swing her long legs, and Bill folded his arms over his yellow t-shirt, smiling fondly. Richie, his electric-blue sneakers lighting up red sparks when he stomped his feet, danced and whooped while Stan, huffing irritably, dragged him closer to try and tame his springy brown hair. 

"You're all..." Ben marveled. 

"All yours, baby," Richie winked roguishly, causing the pink flush on Ben's cheeks to spread out onto his ears. 

Ben's colors brought a sweetness they'd been missing from their lives. He was the spun sugar in cotton candy; the lilac of an evening sky. He was fresh-blooming lavender, the apples of little Georgie’s cheeks. They all adored Ben's tenderness and his quick wit. Though there were still gray patches all around, these new shades made their realities more complex as they grew and changed- together; always together. 

They were six lonely children united by a secret love, and it made all the difference in the world. 

* * *

Their final color came without preamble on a warm summer's day. The children, now twelve and thirteen years old, had been enjoying a pleasant afternoon in the Barrens when approaching voices alerted them of their new company.

They'd seen Mike around town before, but as he didn't attend school with him, they hadn't yet had a chance to interact. Still, they knew him well enough to recognize his tall form, all legs and elbows, racing at full sprint with eyes wild in terror. 

Bill, ever the leader, shot to his feet first and met the boy halfway, catching onto his shoulders as he panted and shuddered. "Yuh-you okay?" he asked, hardly a stutter in his voice as he took charge. 

"Bowers..." Mike gasped. "Help... they've got firecrackers..." 

Beverly and Richie immediately took place in front of Mike, both warriors in their own right when crouched protectively. Bill flanked Beverly's right and Ben, Mike's left. Stan reached for Eddie, trying to pull him away from imminent danger, but Eddie shook his head. If his friends could face it, then so could he. 

Stan sighed and pressed close to Eddie's side instead, defensive but accepting. 

Henry Bowers and his gang of thugs burst through the thick foliage, sweaty and furious and, as Mike had said, brandishing quite a lot of explosives. 

Beverly, red as justice, threw the first rock. She didn't bother with formalities, with fighting words. She'd had enough of the bullies and all their torment, and she wanted them gone from this safe place that her friends had made holy with childhood belief. 

Bedlam followed. Bill was cool and calculating as a trickling blue stream, his throws precise and sharp. Richie, wild as a sunburst, flung rocks in hapless abandon. Ben was all heart, sometimes shielding his soulmates with his body, other times tackling the bullies where they stood. 

Stan systematically slunk along the sidelines, tripping Henry up with a swift kick to the back of the knees. When Moose made to fling a particularly sizable rock at Eddie's face, Stan seized him by his free thumb and twisted it backwards until the enormous boy was brought squealing to his knees, begging for mercy. 

Eddie and Mike, newly acquainted but incredibly in sync, fought as naturally as they'd been doing all their lives, and in mere minutes the Bowers gang had been sent running- limping- away, humiliated and vowing revenge. 

The Losers collapsed, exhausted, sore, and panting, onto the lush green ground of their precious Barrens. 

... Green... 

It occurred to the others in intervals as, one by one, they all turned to gawk at Mike, who was staring at the world around him with enormous eyes. 

_Everything_ was green; verdant and alive and growing. 

This was it. Their world was complete and alive in ways it never had before; as though all secrets had been laid bare at their feet. 

"Oh, Mike..." Eddie smiled tearfully. 

Mike's own eyes were looking suspiciously damp as he regarded his new friends- his soulmates. "Hey, guys," he said wonderingly. 

They all laughed, relieved and giddy and joyful at the colors their new lives together offered. 

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> For a full list of my work for the IT fandom, from fics to moodboards to voice acting to analysis, go here: [[Link](http://mugsandpugs1.tumblr.com/stephenkingsit)]


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